Poems, by J.D. VVith elegies on the authors death

V.

If poysonous mineralls, and if that tree, Whose fruit threw death on else immortall us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious Cannot be damn'd; Alas; why should I bee? Why should intent or reason, borne in mee, Make sinnes, else equall, in mee, more heinous? And mercy being easie, and glorious To God, in his sterne wrath, why threatens hee? But who am I, that dare dispute with thee? O God, Oh! of thine onely worthy blood, And my teares, make a heavenly Lethean flood, And drowne in it my sinnes blacke memorie, That thou remember them, some claime as debt, I thinke it mercy, if thou wilt forget,